


Team SHITs vs. The Duke of Edinburgh Award

by dotgeebee



Series: Team SHITs (A CR British Boarding School AU) [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, because why not, everybody's favourite found family, except this time with teenage angst and various regional British accents, it's all of the pre-stream content but in a British boarding school, the duke of edinburgh award AU nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9541145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotgeebee/pseuds/dotgeebee
Summary: Without any other friends to team up with, when Vex, Vax, Percy, Keyleth, Grog, Pike, Scanlan and Tiberius sign up for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, they are thrown together and required to complete a series of challenges and become friendly enough not to kill each other completing the award's biggest challenge: a two day hike through the middle of nowhere together in six months time. Can the SHITs get their DofE Awards whilst navigating all the drama of being fourteen and attending a prestigious boarding school in the middle of nowhere? (Based on The Story of Vox Machina special.)





	1. Percy

**Author's Note:**

> (Just a quick note for readers who don't know what Duke of Edinburgh is!) DofE is a well known award in the UK with several levels for young adults aged 14-25. You basically have do a certain number of months doing volunteering, improving a skill, and playing a sport once a week, but the most well known and focused on part of DofE is the expedition section. You basically get dropped off in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the morning, and have to walk to the campsite by the evening, and then repeat that the next day, whilst carrying all your food, clothes and camping equipment.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Percy had never been put in detention before, but he was quickly coming to the conclusion that it was a deeply unenjoyable experience. Before it had started, Percy had actually been looking forward to it. An hour in silence with no one to bother him and a chance to get ahead on homework. It sounded perfect. However, Percy’s illusions about what detention actually was quickly shattered when he discovered that doing anything useful or constructive was apparently not allowed and, as he was the only one in detention, he was going be being under constant observation.

Instead, Percy had been given a piece of paper with the heading “100 Uses for a Paperclip” and expected to fill it within the next hour. Percy had filled the page within around fifteen minutes and then quietly requested that he make a start on his homework. The teacher had curtly informed him that that was not what detention was for. Percy tried to explain that if he didn’t keep up with his homework, he’d just end up in detention again and the problem would just escalate from there. The teacher almost seemed convinced but, unsurprisingly, the rules won out and Percy was stuck with nothing to do for forty-five minutes.

The minutes ticked past. Eventually, the teacher announced she was stepping out for a minute, and that she would return soon. As soon as she left the room, Percy pulled out his copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ and began to read it surreptitiously underneath the table.

The book was battered and dog-eared from living in Percy’s school bag for two whole weeks; a sure sign that Percy’s usual voracity for reading had waned somewhat in his current circumstances. Despite having absolutely blitzed through every other novel he’d read, especially those of Jane Austen’s, Percy had been stuck reading and rereading almost every page as none of the information seemed to ever actually reach his brain.

As he read Mr Collins’ declaration of love, if you could call it that, for no less than the fourth time, the door to the classroom swung open, crashing into the metal lockers and causing the whole room to vibrate.

A rag-tag bunch of people Percy half-recognised from various lessons and activities burst through the door, practically falling over themselves in the process.

The group looked at the empty teacher’s desk and then the rest of the empty desks in confusion. Clearly they had been expecting a bigger audience. Someone pushed a tiny guy forward. He grinned at Percy, expertly swishing his fringe out of the way of his eyes.

“My name is Scanlan Shorthalt! And we need you, Paisley, to come with us!” He said dramatically. Somebody –Percy couldn’t quite tell who the hand belonged to– slapped the guy on the back of the head and angrily whispered something to him. “I mean Percy! We need you, _Percy_ , to come with us!”

Percy looked around the empty room, expecting somebody else with the same name to materialise and get up and go with them on whatever adventure they were about to have. Eventually, it occurred to Percy that they actually might mean him. Percy wasn’t quite sure what to with this information, but he thought it best to quickly note his page number and slide his book back into his bag.

“Um, that’s me?” Percy said, suddenly incredibly conscious of how out of place his Scottish accent sounded.

“Chop chop, then!” Scanlan said, indicating that Percy was supposed to just gather up his stuff and run away with them. “Come on, man! That stuffy old teacher’ll be back soon! Do you want to be rescued or not?”

“Rescued?” Percy didn’t quite follow.

“Dude, what do you think we’re here for?” The big burly black guy at the back asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Antics and shenanigans?” Percy suggested.

“Yes!” Scanlan said, jumping slightly with excitement. “Antics and shenanigans that involve rescuing you from this hell hole!”

“It’s just detention.” Percy had dealt with worse situations and no doubt would do again.

Scanlan shrugged, flicking his ponytail over his shoulder. “Mere hyperbole.”

“I see.” Percy hadn’t expected such a word to come out of his mouth and took a moment to process it.

“So, are you coming then?”

“Oh, uh,” Percy looked at the group, then at the teacher’s empty desk, and then back to the group. “Yes. Thank… you?”

The group looked at Percy expectantly.

“Tick-tock, de Rolo!” The big guy looked at him with a grin that freaked Percy out just a little bit.

Percy grabbed his stuff and picked his blazer up off the floor. He weaved between the separated desks and followed them out the door. As soon as the door shut behind them, they all descended into fits of giggles, clapping each other on the back and congratulating each other.

“What?” Percy asked, entirely confused by the situation.

Scanlan looked behind Percy, down the corridor. “We better get going.” He said.

With that, Scanlan took off running in the opposite direction to whatever he’d seen, with the big guy and a tiny blonde girl in tow. A lanky ginger girl with a huge grin set off after them, closely followed by an Asian boy with spiky hair.

Percy turned back and saw the teacher who was, luckily, completely engaged in the book she had gone to get. He turned back, suddenly quite panicked.

In front of him were the only two members of the party left. Percy looked from one to the other and back again. They were almost completely identical. They were both of average height, with pale skin, long thick black hair, and bright blue eyes. It was only the difference in attire, one in trousers and the other in a skirt, that convinced Percy he wasn’t actually seeing double.

Percy stood there, utterly dumbfounded. He wasn’t quite sure whether they were boys or girls or possibly something in between but he was quite sure of something, they were two of the most gorgeous people he’d ever had the fortune to meet. Percy heard himself gasp and felt his legs apparently fall out from underneath him. He wobbled a little and the twins –he assumed they were twins–each immediately grabbed one of his hands.

“You ready to run, gorgeous?” One of them said, with a raised eyebrow and mischievous grin.

“Uh, sure?” Percy said, still quite convinced he’d fallen asleep in detention and this was some kind of weird dream he was having.

“Good.” The other one said, nodding to their sibling.

Immediately, they took off running, dragging Percy behind them the whole way.

Percy noticed as he ran along that although his feet were making a hell of a lot of noise, the twins beside him were virtually silent to the point where it was freaking Percy out a little.

They rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and ran –almost headfirst– into the rest of the group, who were all squished up out of sight, apparently waiting for something.

Percy was about to speak when one of the twins, the skirt one, put their finger on his lips and gave him a cheeky wink. Percy could feel the blood rising to his cheeks, but as his both his hands were being firmly held by the twins, Percy simply did his best to sink into his blazer and hide from everyone. Hopefully, they’d be too preoccupied with whatever hijinks they were planning to notice him blushing.

A moment later, Percy heard a voice echoing down the corridor. “PERCIVAL!” The teacher squawked.

Scanlan high-fived the big guy, who was on the verge of bursting out into laughter that Percy assumed would be incredibly loud and raucous, and indicated down the staircase that lead to the bottom of the maths building.

Percy didn’t move instantaneously and so the twins began running down the stairs with Percy in tow. Percy, who was still utterly clueless as to what on earth was going on, began to run down the stairs, trying his best not to trip up.

The rest of the group quickly swarmed around him and followed him down the stairs, in an apparent effort to conceal the fact that they had quite literally kidnapped a student from detention.

The blonde girl, who was barely as tall as Percy’s shoulder, stumbled a couple of times in the descent, but each time she floundered, the big guy would slow for a second to grab the back of blazer and haul her upright.

They finally made it to the ground floor and everyone kept herding Percy out the door into the depressingly cold, but surprisingly not rainy, November weather and down the path to the library. Percy wasn’t quite sure what they all planned to do in the library but he didn’t have any breath to ask them with just yet, so he kept running.

The twins steered him past the main entrance to the library and around the back to an emergency exit door, with a large ‘NO ENTRY’ sign.

Percy looked from one twin to the other, as everyone else caught up with him. “I’m not going through there! It’ll set the alarms off!” Percy said, between deep breaths and a small amount of wheezing. There were many positive adjectives to describe Percy, ‘in good shape’ was not one of them.

The twins smiled at him, the way an adult smiles at a three year old who's telling them about a monster under the bed. One of them pulled on the door and Percy braced for the loud wailing of the fire alarm.

Nothing happened.

The twins pulled him through the open door and into an area of the library Percy didn’t particularly recognise. A quick look at the poster on the wall that simply read ‘210’ and Percy’s extensive knowledge of the Dewey decimal system told him that they were in the Philosophy and Theory of Religion section, which explained why Percy had never seen it before.

Percy had been so distracted by trying to work out which section of the library they were in that he barely noticed as he was plonked down into a chair.

He looked at the table in front of him as everyone else sat down around him. It was one of the big tables for group work that were scattered throughout the library. The table itself was a complete mess, with notes and half-done homework assignments strewn everywhere amongst the biscuit boxes and laptops.

Everyone quickly found their seats and began to continue their homework as if nothing had happened. Percy looked over at the twins, who were sat next to each other to his right. He quietly tapped the nearest one on the shoulder.

“Yes?” They looked at him, a look of pure innocence on their face.

“Aren’t you going to tell me why you kidnapped– why you rescued me from detention?” Percy asked.

“Oh, but that would ruin the surprise, darling!” The other one said, a glint of utter deviousness in their eye.

“Can I at least have your names?” He asked.

“Oh, if you insist.” They sighed melodramatically. “Vex’ahlia Vessar. But you can call me Vex.” They winked at him. The combination of the skirt and the female name led Percy to believe she was a she but honestly he still wasn’t sure.

Percy looked around the table to make sure no one was listening and leaned in close. “You’re a girl, right?” He whispered.

Vex chuckled and so did the other twin. “Yes, darling.” She said, with a suggestive eyebrow raised. Percy was beginning to think she was incapable of speaking without flirting at the same time. Or maybe that was just him being hopeful.

“And this,” she nudged her twin, “is my _brother_ Vax’ildan. Vax for short.” Percy noted the way Vex emphasised ‘brother’ to avoid any further gender-related confusion.

“Charmed.” Vax said, barely looking up from his work. It was obvious which twin was the more socially capable one and it certainly wasn’t Vax.

The blonde girl across the table looked up and smiled at Percy, catching his attention. “I’m Pike, I think we have Science together?” She said.

Percy vaguely remembered someone with the same shade of platinum blonde hair sitting a few rows in front of him in Chemistry, but he couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just his confirmation bias running riot.

“Oh, uh, yeah. I think we do. It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” She said. Her smile differed so entirely from the smiles he’d been getting from the twins, it seemed absurd to Percy that the English language could describe them both with the same word. Pike’s was calm and bright and heartfelt, whereas the twins were prone to more mischievous, scheming, all-knowing smiles.

Percy felt the table jostle a little as someone apparently kicked someone else underneath it. The big guy sat next to Pike suddenly sat up, and looked at her in confusion. “Introduce yourself.” She whispered.

“Oh. Oh, okay.” He said, his voice as deep and booming as Percy had expected it to be, given how large and domineering he was. “I…” He paused, possibly for dramatic effect. “Am Grog Strongjaw. You may have seen me around school doing activities such as rugby, rugby training, and lifting incredibly heavy things.”

Now that Grog mentioned it, Percy did vaguely recognise him from assemblies and sports notices. Grog was the school’s rugby star, and all round big man on campus. What he was doing hanging out with this bunch of misfits was a mystery, but Percy was sure the gossip mill of Emon High was absolutely loving it. And also absolutely hating it. Because that’s what gossip was for, apparently.

“You already know who I am.” Scanlan said. The meaning of his eyebrow wiggling was completely lost on Percy, but Percy smiled courteously nonetheless.

The Asian boy’s eyes stayed glued to his giant stack of work, but he waved a hand in Percy’s general direction. “Tiberius Stormwind.” He said, with a strong Welsh accent that took Percy completely by surprise.

Percy turn to the red-haired girl next to him, the only one so far who hadn’t introduced herself. She looked slightly shocked that he’d remembered she existed but stuck her hand out for him to shake anyway. “Keyleth!” She squeaked, shaking Percy’s hand vigorously.

“Welcome,” Vex said, with an element of unnecessary drama, “to Team SHITs.”

Percy looked around the bizarre group he’d apparently found himself a part of.

“Um… thanks?”


	2. Percy

Percy smiled awkwardly at the group, who had apparently named themselves the SHITs for some entirely unknown reason, and tried to ignore the voice in his head that was telling him he’d just joined a cult.

To try and put his mind at ease, Percy decided to try and get some answers about what was going on. “So, are you guys going to–?”

Vex put her finger on his lips to silence him again. She locked eyes with him for a second, a clear warning to stay quiet. She nudged her brother and they both looked past Percy, out into the main area of the library.

“Keep your head down, and don’t say anything, okay? Just find some work to do.” Vax said. He pushed a couple of sheets of paper and an incredibly expensive looking pen in his direction.

The teacher’s familiar nasal voice rang out throughout the library. She hadn’t even reached them yet but she had already begun to scream. “WHAT ON GOD’S EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Everyone on the ground floor of the library suddenly turned around to look at the teacher and the group of students she was yelling at.

Scanlan began to get up but Vex shot him down with a look and got up instead. She practically floated over to the teacher, who was completely red in the face and not in an “oh no these two people of indeterminate gender are the prettiest people I’ve ever seen in my life” kind of way but more in an “if I get my hands on those children I’ll wring their necks and then use them as darts practice” kind of way.

“What are you talking about?” Vex asked. She looked back at Vax in mock confusion.

“YOU JUST KIDNAPPED A STUDENT FROM DETENTION!” The teacher snapped. All of the other students in the vicinity suddenly began to whisper to each other excitedly. No doubt by dinner time, the entire school would be aware of what was currently going down in the library.

“We’ve been here the whole time, Miss. And none of us were due for detention this afternoon.” Vex continued, with a calm about her that freaked Percy out slightly.

“Oh, is that what you’re going with?” The teacher’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. Percy looked at the rest of the table, but none of them seemed even remotely concerned. “Just lying straight to my face? Percival de Rolo was due in detention this afternoon for failing to complete his homework to a proper standard.”

“What?  _ Percy _ ?” Vex looked back at Percy, quickly shooting him a wink, and laughed a care-free ‘oh don’t be so ridiculous’ sort of laugh. “Percy’s far too much of a goody-two-shoes to get stuck in detention. There must have been a mix-up.”

Percy wasn’t quite sure he resented the ‘goody-two-shoes’ remark, he was more concerned that he’d literally never met these people in his life and they already had a handle on what kind of person he was, whereas he had only just learned their names.

“There wasn’t a mix-up. He was due in detention.” The teacher said, through gritted teeth. Her attempts to remain calm were apparently not entirely going to plan.

“Maybe a teacher mis-clicked his name on the website?” Vex suggested.

“I assigned him the detention! As I planning on doing for every single one of you, since none of you appear to be contradicting your fellow classmate.” The teacher’s last comment was aimed at the table, a clear suggestion that if anyone spoke up they’d avoid punishment.

No one showed even the slightest trace of concern in their faces. They simply looked amongst themselves, shrugged, and continued with their homework. Apparently, they were confident enough in their plan that they weren’t even fazed by the threat of detention.

Vex sighed, in a kind of despondent ‘I’m so sorry it’s come to this’ sort of fashion. “Well, since we’ve been at this table the whole time and you’re the only one who thinks Percy’s in detention–”

The teacher laughed in disbelief. “I just saw you run across the lawn to get here!”

“We haven’t left the building. You can check with the librarian or even with the logs for the card readers. We’ve been here the whole time.” Vex said.

It occurred to Percy that since they’d come in a less than standard entrance he hadn’t been able to scan his library card as he entered, meaning that Vex’s suggestion was about to land them all in hot water. He looked over at Vax in alarm. Vax noticed him and grinned mischievously, pulling an incredibly familiar looking library card out of his blazer pocket.

Vax quickly scribbled something at the top of the nearest sheet of paper and pushed it in front of Percy, who read it quickly.

_ We swiped it in with the rest of ours earlier! _

Percy had no idea when or how Vax had managed to nick his library card but it was becoming clear to Percy that this hadn’t been a spur of the moment thing and the whole situation had been meticulously planned. Also, Vax had much nicer handwriting than Percy was expecting.

Percy relaxed slightly and looked back over at Vex. She had apparently said something incredibly clever –or, quite possibly, incredibly stupid but Percy hoped it was the former– as the teacher was storming off in the direction of the librarian, apparently to go check out Vex’s story.

Vex returned to the table, smiling quite contentedly.

“That should keep her busy for a while.” Vex said, slipping into her seat between Vax and Pike. “Now, Percival,” She looked at him in such a way that Percy wasn’t sure whether she was going to kill him or kiss him. Hopefully neither.

“I do prefer Percy.” He explained, shifting uncomfortably under Vex’s gaze.

Vex tossed a stray lock of hair over her shoulder. “And I do prefer sunbathing to school work, but here we are. Anyway, onto business.” At that, the entire group shifted slightly. Perhaps Percy was finally going to find out why the fuck they’d ‘rescued’ him in the first place. “We’re attempting to find a particular kind of item, and we heard  _ you _ were the man for the job.”

Vax took over. “We have been most reliably informed that you, Percival, are the owner of the oldest thing on school grounds.” Percy noticed that Vax’s voice had the same charming quality as Vex that made everything he said utterly compelling, not that Percy could have told you what it was or how they did it.

Percy thought about all the priceless heirlooms he’d stolen from Whitestone when he’d left that were stashed in various hiding places in his room. He laughed nervously. “I think you must have me confused with someone else, I–”

Vex reached across the table and took his hand. “Oh, come now, Percival, don’t be shy. We all know what it is.” She said.

“Do we?” Percy squeaked, somewhat distracted by the hand massage Vex was giving him.

“Your  _ name _ .” She said, with a smirk.

Vex’s answer wasn’t at all what Percy had been expecting and he quickly broke out of his hand-massage-related trance. “My what?” He said.

“Well, your title to be specific.” Vax explained.

Percy took his hand out of Vex’s and looked at the rest of the table. Everyone was watching him with an intensity that was slightly creepy.

“How do you know my–?” Percy hadn’t told anyone anything about where he’d come from or who he was. Apart from it being painful in a way words could not describe, Percy had always attempted to keep a distance between himself and the long list of titles that came after ‘de Rolo III’, even before the events of last summer.

“I have my ways.” Vex said, raising her eyebrows at him suggestively.

Vax looked at his sister and then at Percy. He smirked. “She googled it.”

“Wow, I didn’t realise you could flirt with a computer, Vex.” Scanlan said. His comment suggested to Percy that flirtation appeared to be Vex’s go-to method of extracting information. Percy wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Without missing a beat, Vex flicked her head round, her hair swishing around her shoulders, and glared at Scanlan. “Wow, I didn’t realise you were such a  _ moron _ , Scanlan.” She said sharply.

Scanlan grinned at Grog, who offered a fist for Scanlan to bump.

Percy watched the various dynamics with amusement but then his eyes caught Vex’s smirk and he remembered her odd request. “Um, just, out of interest, why do you need the oldest thing on school grounds?”

“It’s for a competition.” Grog said, his eyes lighting up in a way that suggested he was more than likely to bite someone’s ear off to win. Apparently, the giant rugby player was aggressively competitive. What a shocker.

“For what?” Percy couldn’t imagine what kind of peculiar competition would require his name as a component.

“DofE scavenger hunt thing.” Vax explained. “All the different teams have to find things to fit ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’.”

“A what scavenger hunt thing?” Percy said, looking at him in confusion.

“Duke of Edinburgh?” Vax said. Percy shrugged. He’d never heard of it.

Grog laughed loudly. Percy imagined that Grog probably did  _ everything _ loudly. “How do you not know what that is? You’re  _ from  _ Scotland!” He said, grinning at Scanlan.

“I.. Uh, Edinburgh is a three hour drive from my house.” Percy said. “Also I’m not sure that the Duke of Edinburgh actually has anything to do with the city.” Percy said it like it was a suggestion, but as a full blown member of the aristocracy, Percy was well aware that the Duke of Edinburgh was a title created by various monarchs several times since the 1700s and usually given to close family members of said monarch, including in 1947 by King George VI for his new son-in-law.

“It’s an award.” Vax explained. “You have to do a whole bunch of volunteering and sports and stuff and then in May you and your team go on an unsupervised two day hike in some national park somewhere.” Percy nodded even though he’d never heard of it in his life. It probably had something to do with the fact that he’d never attended an actual school before he’d started at Emon High School in September. 

“So what do you get?” Percy asked. Everyone around the table looked at him in confusion.

“If you win the scavenger hunt?” He specified.

“Glory!” Pike said, slamming her fist on the table and then thrusting it in the air.

“Honour!” Grog said, doing the same.

“Social influence!” Scanlan said, copying them both.

Percy smirked. “So  _ nothing _ ?”

Vax shrugged. “Essentially.”

“Doesn’t it have to be an object?” Percy asked. As per usual when confronted with an odd problem, his mind was swimming with questions.

“Not according to Mr T.” Vex said, obviously quite proud of herself for having done the proper research. Mr T, or Mr Tal’dorei as he preferred to be known, was the headmaster of Emon High School, and, as much as he tried to claim otherwise, something of a softie.

“So you guys are a DofE team?” Percy asked, double-checking his facts.

“Yup. Team SHITs.” Scanlan said, with a wicked grin on his face. “It stands for Team Super High Intensity Team!”

Without looking up, Tiberius huffed. “The first ‘team’ is redundant.” He mumbled, to no one in particular.

“We used to be uh… much less optimistic.” Pike explained, her sunny disposition practically radiating off her.

“I see.” Percy thought for a second. “So what do you actually need me to  _ do _ ?”

Vex looked at her brother. He shrugged and gave her a look that said ‘your idea, your problem’. Vex turned back to Percy and smiled awkwardly. It was interesting to watch her carefully constructed façade crack ever so slightly. “Well, we’re not allowed to use any possessions that don’t belong to the school, or one of us, or someone directly related to us so…” Percy suddenly realised where this was going.  “Well… we need you to join our DofE team.” She said.

Percy looked around at odd group of people he’d found himself a part of. He barely knew them. He’d only just learned their names. The whole idea was ridiculous.

“So what do you say?” Scanlan said, leaning in along with Grog and Pike. Percy noticed that even Keyleth and Tiberius, who’d been up to their necks in work for the duration of the conversation, had stopped working to look at them.

Percy leant back in his chair and raised an eyebrow at them. “You want me to attempt to complete the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award, including spending several days alone with all of you in the middle of nowhere, purely so that you guys can win a competition that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things?”

Vax grinned, obviously quite proud of how utterly ridiculous the plan was. “Basically, yeah.”

Percy grinned back. “Alright then. Why not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Any feedback would be much appreciated! xx


	3. Vex'ahlia

_ One Week Earlier... _

Vex was procrastinating. There was only so much Latin homework one could before one’s soul began to hurt. She looked down and read her translation for the fourth time. There was no way that this guy had just had his nose bitten off by evil witches because he happened to share a name with a dead guy, but that was what she’d got, so that’s what she’d written.

Something cold and damp nudged her arm. She looked over at her dog, Trinket, who was lying across the other half of the corner sofa. He looked almost as bored as Vex felt. Vex felt bad for not having taken him for a walk yet but she didn’t think “I didn’t finish any of my homework because Trinket needed to stretch his legs” would cut it with her teachers.

Trinket nudged her again, with his signature sad face that Vex just couldn’t say no to.

She pushed her exercise book off the sofa with a dramatic sigh.

When he didn’t react, she looked down at her brother. Vax was lying on his stomach on the carpet next to her, his eyes glued to his phone, almost certainly texting that boy on the swimming team that he’d been making googly eyes at across the dining hall all week.

She prodded him with her foot. Trinket stretched out a paw and did the same, looking at Vex like ‘did I do good, mum?’. Vax chuckled at something swim boy had said, and began to text him back.

Vex gave up on dragging her brother away from his romantic escapades, and grabbed her laptop from the end of the sofa, using her other hand to scratch Trinket between his ears absentmindedly. There were a bunch of messages on the SHITs group chat, primarily Grog and Scanlan debating whether a chicken would be as fast as an ostrich if they were the same size. Vex ignored it, in favour of her favourite mindless hobby: googling Emon High School to see if there was any dirt she could dig up on her school.

She’d been scrolling for a while when she’d stumbled across an article online about some random aristocrat who’d just joined her year, Year 10. Aristocrats at EHS were nothing new. There weren’t many –the school tended to attract a more ‘new money’ kind of crowd– but they weren’t rare or shocking enough that Vex had heard any whispers.

Still, she’d scrolled absentmindedly down the article until a picture of the student in question made her stop. Vex prided herself on knowing almost everyone at EHS, and the boy in the picture was unmistakably the shy quiet kid who sat at the back of her Latin lessons. Unlike the picture, Vex was pretty sure she’d never seen Percival smile once, not even when he got 100% on a test the rest of the class barely scraped 50% on, and his shockingly bright platinum hair was miles away from the dark brown mop in the picture, but it was definitely him.

Vex gasped. Trinket picked his head to see what was going on. When he didn’t spot a rabbit or bird that he could chase, he flopped his head back into Vex’s lap.

Vax  _ still _ didn’t react. She kicked him in the side.

Still nothing.

“Look at this hot rich boy who goes to our school, Vax.” Vex said.

Vax sat up. “Where?”

Vex showed him the picture, smirking at how  _ utterly _ predictable her brother was.

Vax took a moment to assess the picture. “Oh, he  _ is _ cute.”

“Would I ever lie to you, brother?” Vex asked, in mock offence.

Vax snorted with laughter. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

Vex ignored him. “And since you’ve clearly got your hands full with some boy over there–”

“How did you–?” Vax said, looking at his phone in confusion. Vax was sneaky, but he wasn’t  _ that _ sneaky. Especially when it came to pretty boys on the swim team.

“–I’m calling dibs on this one.” Vex continued.

Vax raised an eyebrow at her. “How very monogamous of you.”

“Wow, now I  _ am _ offended.” Vex said, with a frown.

Vex looked back at the article for some explanation as to what a Scottish Lord was doing in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere in Somerset. A single line caught her eye.

_ ‘Percival de Rolo has recently inherited his title as Lord of Whitestone, a title that has been in the de Rolo family for more than five hundred years.’ _

A grin spread across Vex’s face.

“What?” Vax asked.

“I just found the next item on the hit list.” Vex pointed at the big chart she’d assembled on the wall.

The chart showed all the items on the scavenger hunt, with possible ideas, locations, favours they would need, and other notes. It was a disorganised mess that had spread, Post-it by Post-it, from just above the fireplace to encompassing an entire wall.

“Which one?” Vax looked at the neon mess that was doing a beautiful job of ruining the monochromatic theme that their father had carefully curated for the house.

“Oldest thing on school grounds.” Vex said, with a grin on her face.

Vax gave her a look. “I thought we had that covered with Tibsy’s family heirloom.” He said, looking at the orange Post-it that said ‘Ioun Stone!’ in bright blue marker.

“I just found us something better.” Vex smiled proudly at her brother.

“His weird stone thing is three hundred years old.” Vax didn’t look convinced.

“Like I said. I found us something better.” Vex pushed her laptop off the sofa in Vax’s general direction.

He winced slightly as it dropped onto his stomach. Vex watched Vax’s eyes flick back and forth as he read the page.

“So?” She said, wrenching her laptop out of his grip.

Vax rolled his eyes. “Articles and possessions used to satisfy conditions of the scavenger hunt must belong to a member of the associated Duke of Edinburgh team or to the High School itself.” He said, doing his best imitation of the dreary bureaucratic pen-pushing morons that oppressed him and all teenagers trapped in full-time education.

Vex shut her laptop and flopped back on the sofa. “Fuck.” She muttered.

“Aren’t you glad I’m here?” Vax said. His phone buzzed and he quickly picked it up off the carpet.

“I mean, not really, no.” Vex rolled her eyes. “Who even is that?” She said, leaning over to read over Vax’s shoulder.

Vax flipped his phone over, and frowned at her. “No one.”

“Piss off.” Vex scoffed. “The great Vax’ildan Vessar does not stay glued to his phone for just no one.”

Vax thought for a moment. “Well then. It’s none of your fucking business.”

“Okay. Just don’t do anything stupid.” Vex said, knowing that the chances of him actually heeding her advice were incredibly small.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Vax said, with a smirk. Vex rolled her eyes at him. “So, what are you doing about Mr Scottish Duke Man?” He asked, indicating to Vex’s now closed laptop.

Vex bit her lip. “Not sure.”

“Well,” Vax thought for a moment. “From my perspective you have four options.”

“Oh yes?” Vex said, completely  _ thrilled _ to hear what her brother had to say on the subject.

Vax grinned, and then quickly assumed a serious sort of all-knowing type expression. “First option: boring but practical. Go back to Tibsy’s stone. Second option: interesting but with a possibility of backfire. Remove the rule from the school site entirely. Third option: ambitious and illegal, but not in a fun way. Marry the boy before the end of term, acquiring that five hundred year old title for yourself. Fourth option: improbable, unpredictable, and quite frankly, really dumb. Convince Baron Whatshisface to join our DofE team.”

* * *

“Seriously?  _ Those _ were your options?” Percival said, interrupting Vex’s story.

Now that Percival had, somewhat madly, agreed to join their team, the three of them were making their way over to the admin block to get him signed up for DofE before the admission period ended at the end of the day.

“Well, some of them were.” Vex explained. “I wasn’t about to give up on something I knew would win us the scavenger hunt.” She was nothing if not aggressively competitive.

“So three options then.” Percy surmised.

Vex shook her head. “Well, changing the rules on the website wouldn’t work. They’ve been the same since the first scavenger hunt, which was over ten years ago. So really we only had two options.”

“I rather hope you didn’t seriously consider marrying me.” Percy said, laughing slightly.

Vax opened the door to the admin block and grinned at Percy. “She said she didn’t like your hair enough to go through with it.”

“I think you’ll find,  _ brother _ ,” Vex punctuated her sentence with a well-placed kick to the back of Vax’s knee that almost sent him tumbling to the ground. “That Percival’s hair is much cuter in person.”

Percival blushed again, his cheeks an fantastically bright red. Vex felt just the slightest hint of remorse for continually embarrassing him but the effect was just too amusing to stop.

“Oh, I, uh… thank you?” He said, awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

“The blonde is a bit of a strange choice though.” Vex said, hoping she might get a little more of his backstory.

Percy laughed nervously. “It was a, uh, hastily made decision, shall we say.”

Vax snorted. “Been there done that.”

Vex rolled her eyes at him. “There’s a difference between bleaching your hair, and being caught making out with the extremely conservative headmaster’s son, Vax.” She decided, for the sake of Percival’s cheeks, not to mention the fact that Vax hadn’t just been caught once, but on nine different occasions in the space of a fortnight. Apparently, Vax had been sacrificing secrecy for what must has been some seriously good tongue tennis.  

“Can I help you?” The receptionist asked. Her voice was so monotone that Vex almost didn’t notice she’d spoken.

“Yeah, our friend Percy here wants to enrol for DofE.” Vax said, smiling serenely at her.

“Okay.” The receptionist said. She clicked around a bit on her computer and slowly began to type something. “What’s your year?” She asked, her voice almost as slow and drawn out as her typing.

“Uh, Year 10.” Percy said, awkwardly shifting from one foot to another. Apparently, there was nothing Percy couldn’t do in a supremely awkward fashion.

“And your house?”

“Issylra.” He squeaked.

“And your first name?”

“Percy.”

Vex was beginning to lose the will to live.

“And your last name.”

“De Rolo.”

The receptionist’s nails click-clacked on the keyboard as she typed. After a few moments, she slowly turned her head to look at Vex, Vax and Percy.

“You’re not in the system.”

Vex noticed Vax begin to tense and immediately grabbed the back of his blazer before he did something stupid like attack the receptionist. Not that Vex wouldn’t enjoy attacking the receptionist, she just knew that Vax sticking it to the man over some terrible typing skills really wouldn’t help them get the form in on time.

“It’s possible the system only has my, uh, full name.” Percy’s gaze shifted down to the floor. Vex wondered how embarrassing a full name could truly be. Even with her surname making her sound like a character from the Beano, as well as being an ever present reminder of the fact that her father, you know, _existed_ , Vex could still own up to it in public.

“Okay.”

The receptionist clicked something.

“What’s your school year?”

Vex realised she’d simply reset the form, meaning they’d have to go through the whole tedious process again. Apparently, Vax had come to the same realisation, because he groaned loudly and flopped back onto one of the sofas in the waiting area in defeat.

Vex ignored her brother’s melodramatic tendencies and smiled encouragingly at Percy.

Percy returned the smile, although he looked slightly more apprehensive about the whole situation.

“Year 10.” He said.

“And your house?”

“Issylra.”

Vex was pretty sure she detected just a hint of defeat in Percy’s voice.

“And your first name?”

“Percival.”

“And your last name.”

“De Rolo the Third.”

“Ooo. Very fancy.” Vex said, smirking at Percy.

He looked at her, completely deadpan, which only made Vex’s amusement grow.

“You’re not in the system.” The receptionist said, with the exact same intonation as last time.

“Wait!” Percy said, hoping to stop her from resetting the form again. The receptionist slowly turned to look at him.

“I, uh, is there a middle name section?” He asked.

“Let me see.” The receptionist leaned in close to the screen.

Vex and Percy looked at each other in despair. The clock ticked loudly on the wall in the silence.

“Yes. There is.” She said, after an eternity.

Percy smiled at his small victory. “Great. Uh, can I type it in?”

“Students are not allowed access to the administration computers.” The receptionist said.

“It’s quite complicated–”

“Students are not allowed access to the administration computers.”

“It’s really rather long, I’m sure it would be easier if I–”

“Students are not allowed access to the administration computers.”

Percy muttered something under his breath and then looked the receptionist straight in the eye.

“My name is Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the Third.” He said. Vex stared at him. Holy shit, that was a name and a half.

“Gesundheit.” Vax said, from his position face down on the sofa.

“And it would do me a great service if you could give us what we need with some urgency, as its being completed is of  _ great _ importance to us.” Percy said, glowering at the receptionist.

Vex noticed that his stance changed slightly as he said it, like he was becoming another version of himself. Probably one with brown hair, and a shit-ton of money and a castle to his name.

The receptionist froze in place for a second. Apparently, she hadn’t been expecting Percy to be quite so direct with her either. She quickly typed the rest of his name into the computer.

“Ah.” The receptionist laughed nervously. “There it is. Percy de Rolo.”

Vex decided for the sake of efficiency, not to mention the fact that ‘Percy de Rolo’ was the name they’d given the first time around.

“Oh, for the love of fuck.” Vax mumbled, apparently coming to the same conclusion.

“Now, what is it you wanted?” The receptionist asked, clearly slightly on edge.

“The Duke of Edinburgh sign-up form.” Vex explained, stepping ever so slightly in front of Percy.

“Right. Yes. Okay.” The receptionist said, as the printer began to whir.

She handed the still-hot piece of paper to Percy. “There’s a pen on the desk.”

“Thank you. Your celerity is appreciated.” Percy said, taking the form and the pen.

He looked down the piece of paper quickly, then scribbled in the required details in a script that left much to be desired in terms of both legibility and aesthetics.

Percy pushed the piece of paper back to the receptionist.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him. Probably because their interaction was nearly over. “Now I’ll just contact your parents–”

“ _ Guardians _ .” Percy corrected.

Vex recognised the hurt and insistence in Percy’s voice instantly. It sounded all too much like the way Vax said “ _ biological  _ father”. Vex wouldn’t wish the kind of relationship she had with her father on anyone, not even her worst enemy. If she hadn’t known him less than a day, she would have wrapped Percy up in a the world’s biggest bear hug.

The receptionist paused for a moment. “–to get their approval so you can be officially signed up for the program.”

“Wonderful. You’ve been most helpful.” Percy said, turning around and heading for the door.

Vex grabbed Vax’s arm and hauled him up off the sofa and out the door. “You coming, Vax?” She asked, not actually giving him a choice in the matter.

“You interrupted my nap.” He said, pushing his hair out of his eyes so he could frown at her.

Vex looked at him. “Like fuck I did.” She said, extracting herself from under his arm so she could catch up to Percy.

“So… That’s quite a name there, Percival.” Vex said, looking at Percy.

Percy instantly went back to looking at his shoes. “It is.”

“I reckon I could rock a name like that.” Vex said, imagining herself living in a big old castle with a forest and an archery range, just her and Trinket and a fabulously wealthy husband of some description, who was never around but always sending her fabulously expensive gifts.

“I thought you decided my hair wasn’t cute enough for me to be marriage material?” Percy said, with a cheeky grin.

Vex quickly buried her embarrassment under a layer of sarcasm. “Depends. Have you got any eligible siblings who didn’t make a terrible decision involving peroxide?” She said, smiling.

When Percy didn’t reply, she looked over at him.

All the colour had drained from his face, and the way he was standing, it looked like he’d shrunk three or four inches.

Vex frowned in confusion. “Did I say something?”

“Oh.” Percy looked up at her, apparently unaware he’d transformed into a ghost version of himself. “Uh, no. Well…” Percy looked across the grass at nothing in particular. “It’s nothing.” He muttered.

“Oh.” Vex said, ready to drop the subject.

After a second, she gasped as the pieces finally fell into place. She remembered how insistent Percy had been when correcting the receptionist about his guardians, and how the article said Percy had recently inherited his title, and how the pictures had showed him with several half-cropped out people, all of whom shared Percy’s brown hair and slightly lop-sided smile.

“ _ Oh. _ ” Even with her extensive conversational elegance, Vex had nothing to say. “Fuck. Shit. Fuck me. Shit. Fuck.” She stopped walking and went to pull Percy into a hug. As soon as Vex even reached out to touch him, Percy froze in place. “Oh my God.” She said, squeezing him as tight as she could.

Percy just stood there, like he’d never been hugged before and he wasn’t sure what to do.

Vex took a step back. She noticed the tears streaming down Percy’s cheeks. “Was that too much?” She asked.

Percy took a deep breath. “A bit.” He said, folding his arms around himself awkwardly.

“I’m sorry.” Vex said, kind of hoping the ground would open and swallow her up.

Percy smiled awkwardly, brushing away the tears. “It’s fine.”

“I, uh, I don’t know what to say.” Vex admitted. Not having a witty comeback on the tip of her tongue was a bizarre feeling and Vex didn’t like it.

“Don’t worry.” Percy said. His sincerity took Vex by surprise. “I haven’t known what to say in months so, uh, I’m used to it.”

Vex’s fingers itched with the need to wrap Percy up in another hug, but she restrained herself.

Vax ran over. He looked like he was about to crack a joke, but he noticed Percy’s puffy red eyes and faltered. “You guys alright?” He asked, looking at Vex like ‘the fuck did you do to him?’.

“Uh, we were just talking about family and…” Vex said. “Well…” She gestured to Percy, not really sure what to say.

“Say no more.” Vax said. “We’ve got our fair share of family bullshittery.” He said in a stage whisper behind his hand.

“ _ Vax _ .” Vex raised her eyebrows at him.

“What? It’s true.” He said. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, turning to Percy.

“Not particularly.” Percy said quietly.

“Well, if at some point you do, I’m all ears.” Vax said, wiggling his ears at Percy. He grinned at Vex, quite satisfied with his own joke.

Vex face-palmed. “Jesus Christ, Vax.”

“Come on, let’s go grab some dinner.” Vax said, linking his arm in Percy’s and striding towards the dining hall, dragging Percy with him.

“I thought you guys were day pupils.” Percy said.

“We are but our valet isn’t expecting us home for a while.” Vex explained, catching up to them.

Percy frowned in confusion. “Your  _ valet _ ?”

Vex looked at Vax. She was pretty sure it was his turn to explain their truly ridiculous living situation.

“Yeah. Our father lives in Washington DC. We ran away when we were twelve. When our father found us he sent us a valet to look after us and now we live here, with the valet as a kind of guardian.” Vax said nonchalantly. “Like I said. Family bullshittery.” 

Vax had a very matter-of-fact way of speaking that Vex could never really emulate successfully. She was much more of a ‘hide your meaning inside seven metaphors, two innuendos, and a secret language’ kind of girl.

Percy looked at Vex in disbelief. “You ran away?”

“Yes.” She said.

“To Somerset?”

“Uh-huh.”

“All the way from Washington?”

“That’s the one.”

“Right.” Percy said, apprehensively.

“We’re serious.” Vax said, looking Percy in the eye.

Percy laughed. “Honestly, I would expect nothing less of the two people who attempted to kidnap a student from detention to win a scavenger hunt.” He said.

Most people tended to ignore Vex and Vax when they explained how they ended up at the school because people a) didn’t believe them, or b) didn’t like acknowledging the fact that their father was such a colossal dickhead that he didn’t come and find them himself, even when he knew where they were. Vex smiled to herself. Having somebody who not only believed them, but could empathise with them somewhat was beyond refreshing. She could get used to this whole ‘having friends’ business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! xx


	4. Pike

Pike watched Vex and Vax march Percy off out the library towards the admin block, so that he could get signed up for DofE. She hadn’t been particularly convinced by Vex’s hair-brained plan when she’d explained it on the group chat, but she had been interested to see how it would play out. And play out it had, much more successfully than any of them, probably including Vex to be honest, had been counting on.

“So is that it?” Scanlan asked, looking at Pike.

Pike really had no idea. They’d been cutting it pretty close to the application deadline in the hopes that it would force Percy into giving them an immediate response. “I guess so.” She said, looking down at the pile of physics notes in front of her.

“I can’t believe it worked.” Scanlan said, grinning his signature mischievous grin.

“I think we freaked him out a little.” Pike said. She was slightly concerned that they’d traumatised him into joining their group.

Scanlan scoffed. “Speak for yourself.”

Pike looked at Scanlan in disbelief. “Scanlan, you called him  _ Paisley. _ ”

“Hey, at least I tried.” He shrugged.

Grog looked up from his textiles sketchbook. “Wait, is he  _ not _ called Paisley?”

Pike chuckled. “No, Grog, he’s called  _ Percy _ .”

“I was thinking that was a weird name.” Grog said, before returning to designing the title page he was working on.

Pike smiled at him and looked at the rest of the table. Scanlan was doing something on his phone, which was almost certainly Candy Crush; Keyleth was sketching flowers in her art book; and Tiberius was bent over, with his forehead resting on the pile of homework in front of him.

“How’s the philosophy essay going, Tibs?” Pike asked, stretching to see if she could see how much he’d done. The page was empty except for the date and title.

Tiberius groaned.

“Do you want to look at my notes?” She offered, pulling her pristine notes from that day’s Philosophy and Ethics lesson out from her school bag.

“No.” He grunted from his fort made of Post-its and PowerPoint printouts. It took a lot for Tiberius to admit he needed help and his current state was not even  _ close  _ to enough, despite that fact that his philosophy essay was due in the next morning at nine and, as of yet, he had written absolutely nothing.

“Well, they’re here if you want them.” Pike said, pushing the notes towards him. “Why don’t you have a biscuit?” She suggested.

Without moving his head from its position on the desk, Tiberius reached out towards the open box of biscuits, pulled out two chocolate Bourbons and placed them on top of one of his stacks of notes.

Pike sighed. Being friends with stubborn idiots was  _ exhausting _ .

Having given up on helping Tiberius and having finished all of her work for the day, she opened the Excel sheet that Keyleth had made of all the items in the scavenger hunt. They had two weeks until the meeting where all the DofE groups had to hand in their inventories, and they were doing pretty well so far. They had several options for each of the four categories, and all they really had to do was have a meeting at some point to pick their final decisions and they were done.

“What have we picked for ‘something blue’?” Pike asked, looking at the list of possible ideas.

Keyleth looked up. “No idea. Does it have anything on the sheet?” She asked.

Pike shook her head. “Just a bunch of suggestions but nothing concrete.”

“I thought I was writing an angsty poem?” Scanlan asked, leaning over to look at the computer screen.

Pike looked at Keyleth. They exchanged a look of mild concern. Scanlan’s poetry could be very good. The operative word being ‘could’. Even with her determined optimism, Pike couldn’t help but admit that some of it was utter horse shit.

“Isn’t Westruun’s school colour blue?” Grog asked, when no one answered Scanlan. Westruun Preparatory School was the school on the other side of town and Emon’s bitter rival since they’d both been founded in the 1700s.

“Well, it’s more of a cobalt.” Keyleth said, fishing an oversized pencil case out of her school bag.

Grog looked at Pike. “That’s a kind of blue, right?” Grog said, in what he probably thought was a whisper, despite the fact that he was incapable of anything quieter than a roar.

Pike nodded at him. Grog smiled, quite satisfied with himself for knowing what Keyleth was talking about.

He turned back to the group. “Well, couldn’t we just nick something that represents them?”

“Like what?” Scanlan said, his frown giving away the fact that he was still annoyed that no one was taking his angsty poem idea seriously.

“Their school flag?” Grog suggested.

Scanlan was clearly thrown off by Grog’s surprisingly competent suggestion. “And how do you plan on doing that?” He asked.

Grog beamed at them. “I have a contact.” He said, unable to hide how proud he was of himself.

“Seriously?” Keyleth said, beginning to colour in the flowers she’d drawn.

Pike thought for a moment. “He owes one of their cheerleaders a date.” She said, looking at Grog. His grin confirmed she’d remembered correctly.

“And what? She’s just going to steal the flag for you?” Scanlan said, still rather sceptical.

“No but she can tell me where it is and then we can, uh, ‘borrow’ it.” Grog explained.

“And how’s that going to work?” Scanlan asked.

“I dunno.” Grog shrugged. Pike chuckled. Grog had never been one to be concerned with pesky little things like details. “So?” He looked at Pike.

“It’s a good idea, Grog.” She said, smiling encouragingly at him. Grog had found the scavenger hunt to be incredibly frustrating so far. Wilhand’s flat wasn’t full of old and bizarre trinkets like Tiberius’ or the twins’, and Grog didn’t have the kind of intelligence that Vax and Scanlan had that allowed them to come up with off the wall ideas that no one else would ever think of, so he’d felt a bit useless throughout the whole affair.

“Thank you.” Grog said, in his mock serious voice that he loved so much.

Pike scrunched her nose up. “It does mean you’re actually going to have to go on that date though.” She said, hoping she wasn’t raining on Grog’s parade too much.

Grog’s smile dropped. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Pike said. “Sorry, Grog.” She knew how much Grog hated romance and the ridiculous social customs associated with it. Not only had Grog never had a proper crush on anyone, he’d told Pike that he felt like he was too stupid to pick up on social cues and always got flirting and friendliness mixed up.

Grog looked down for a second, his shoulders hunched slightly. Pike was about to call the whole thing off when he looked back at her, a look of determination on his face. “ _ Fine _ . But I am only doing this for the good of the team.” He said, before Scanlan got too excited. Grog’s dating life was something of a point of contention between the two of them.

“We know.” Pike said reassuringly.

“Not because I  _ like _ her.” Grog said.

She smiled. “We know.”

Grog turned and looked at Scanlan. “I don’t  _ like _ anyone.”

Pike put her hand on his shoulder. “We know.”

He turned back to her, slightly surprised. “You do?” He asked.

“Yeah.” She said. Pike knew Grog was very set in his ways and it took a lot to convince him to change his mind about anything. Luckily, Pike had learned to be patient and, most importantly, when to back off.

“Of course!” Keyleth said, smiling at Grog.

“You do you, big guy.” Scanlan said. Pike was surprised at how tactful he was being. Clearly, there was something else he wanted.

“Good.” Grog said, with a definitive nod. “Because if you guys ever tried to set me up on a  _ real _ date, I’d probably crush your skulls.”

Pike laughed. “I don’t doubt it for a second, Grog.”

Pike heard a familiar grumbling sound. She looked at Scanlan. “Was that your stomach?”

“I’m really hungry!” Scanlan said.

“Scanlan, you’ve eaten a whole box of biscuits in the past hour.” Pike said. Even by Scanlan’s standards, a whole box of biscuits in one library session was a bit excessive.

“Yeah, but it’s supper in like  _ ten minutes _ .” Scanlan said. Recently he’d been trying to prove his macho-ness to Pike by eating like Grog. All he’d proved was that the school’s rice pudding really was indistinguishable from actual vomit.

“So?” Keyleth asked.

“So I’m hungry!” Scanlan said, as if hunger was determined by meal times rather than the other way around.

Pike looked at him, unimpressed. “That makes no sense.”

“Your face makes no sense.” He said, shoving his books into his bags.

“Inspiring words from Scanlan Shorthalt.” Keyleth said, closing her art book and pushing her pencils back into their case.

“Come oooon.” Scanlan zipped up his bag and threw it on his back. “We’ve gotta go now!”

“We’re getting there, Scanlan.” Pike said, beginning to pack up her stuff. She watched Tiberius sit up and begin methodically putting all his notes back in their folders.

“It’s Wednesday!” Scanlan said, almost bursting with excitement.

“Yes it is.” Pike said, not really following his meaning.

“Wednesday is burger day! We’re not missing out again!” Scanlan said. They had a habit of taking their time to get to the dining hall and, as such, sometimes missed out on the more popular options. One time, Grog hadn’t got any of the legendary sticky toffee pudding, and he’d almost cried in front of the entire school.  

Grog pushed all his work off the table and into his backpack. Pike wished he’d take a little more care with his personal belongings. “I’ll race you.” Grog said, with a grin. He took off running towards the doors.

“That’s not fair! My legs are shorter than yours!” Scanlan yelled, running after him and ignoring the death glare they were receiving from the librarian.

“Maybe you should have thought about before you decided to be a pipsqueak!” Grog said, over his shoulder.

“That’s… That’s not how that works.” Pike said, looking to Tibsy and Keyleth for support, but the whole table was empty and Keyleth and Tibsy were running toward the card readers. Pike smirked and grabbed her bag.

“Wait for me!” She yelled, charging after them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit later than planned, my laptop went on strike... Anyhoo, hope you enjoy it and any feedback is much appreciated! xx


	5. Vax'ildan

Vax opened the door to the dining hall for his sister and Percy. It wasn’t particularly busy, probably because there was no sign of any food yet.  “Just a warning, Percival,” He said, as they stepped inside.

“Yes?” Percy looked back at Vax. His eyes were still puffy from earlier.

“Pike’s gonna see right through any attempts to pretend you haven’t been crying.” Vax closed the door and headed towards their usual table at the back of the hall.

“And she won’t let it go until you tell her what’s wrong.” Vex said, pulling Percy along behind her.

“Right.” Percy nodded in thought.

“She cares.” Vex said.

“A lot.” Vax added.

Pike’s heart was probably bigger than the rest of theirs’ combined and, as such, she was always worried about them. Crying in front of Pike was a sure fire way to end up swaddled in blankets on the sofa, watching your favourite Disney film, with a mug of hot chocolate filled with marshmallows in one hand, and a handwritten list of why you’re so gosh darn great in the other.

“I see.” Percy said, looking over at Pike, who’d just noticed them.

She waved at them, smiling broadly. As they neared and Pike zeroed in on Percy, her smile faltered and she tilted her head for just a second, before returning to beaming at them. Vax smirked. Nothing got past Pike.

Keyleth turned around in her seat to see who Pike was waving at. When she noticed Vax and Vex and Percy, she grinned. “You’re back!” She said, jumping up and pulling them all into a hug.

“That we are.” Vax said, looking at Percy, who was squished in the middle. He looked like he was about to cry again. Vax politely pushed Keyleth back towards the table, freeing Percy from the hug.

“Took you a while.” Scanlan said, with his eyebrow raised.

“Vax almost killed the receptionist.” Vex said solemnly.

Vax frowned at her. “I did nothing of the sort. _Percival_ , on the other hand…” He trailed off, looking at Percy. Percy blushed a deep shade of red. Was there _anything_ that didn’t embarrass this guy?

“Seriously?” Scanlan looked mildly impressed, which was high praise coming from him.

“Well, I–” Percy laughed nervously.

“Yeah.” Vax said, plonking himself down in his usual seat. In a rare sequence of events, they’d actually managed to arrive for supper before it was even open. It was a day full of firsts. “He whacked out this long as fuck name and scared the shit out of the receptionist.” At the mention of ‘whacking out’ something long, Scanlan and Grog descended into fits of giggles. Pike looked at them both in mild amusement.

Vax smirked. There was nothing like an unintentional dick joke to set the mood for the evening.

“Really, Percy?” Keyleth said. Vax wasn’t sure whether she’d hadn’t _understood_ why Scanlan and Grog had been reduced to a shaking giggling heap, or whether she had but she was just ignoring their ‘uncouth’ humour.

“I mean…” Percy looked at Vex awkwardly. She nodded encouragingly. “I guess so?”

Scanlan reined in his laughter and looked at Percy with admiration. “Holy fuck, dude. Give me the deets.”

“The–” Percy coughed slightly. “The whats?”

“The details.” Pike explained.

Percy thought about it for a moment. “Oh.” He sat down in at the end of the table next to Keyleth. “Well.” And so Percy explained to the rest of the group,  in extensive detail, how he had overcome the Trial of the Mind-Numbingly Ineffective Receptionist. Vax thought that he focused a little too much on his reaction, specifically the part where Vax spent the entire event face down on a sofa losing the will to live, and not enough on the fact that Percy was clearly a raging badass in disguise and that not only did he have a super old title that was going to win them a scavenger hunt, but he had a fucking _awesome_ name to go with it.

“Darling, you missed out the best part.” Vex said, looking at him from across the table.

“I did?” Percy frowned in thought.

Vex laughed. Vax recognised it as what he called the ‘oh you’re so _funny_ , Mr President’ laugh, the one she used when she wanted something from someone and was buttering them up. Vax only hoped that Percy didn’t fall for it, Vex had a tendency to lose interest in romantic endeavours at the drop of a hat. “Your _name_.” She said.

Percy laughed. “Sorry, I just had déja vu.” He said, smiling to himself. “What was that about my name?”

“I’m just saying that I feel like your name was an integral part of the story and you skipped it!” Vex said.

“Oh, well, uh...” Percy looked around at the rest of the table, apparently not entirely sure what their reaction would be. Vax knew that they’d all probably just go ‘Wow! Cool!’ and then totally forget about it. Except Keyleth. Keyleth had a habit of remembering everything she heard that seemed to entirely contradict her otherwise intense airheadedness.

“Come on, Percival.” Scanlan leaned around Tiberius and Keyleth to make eye contact with Percy. “I can’t imagine it’s gonna suck worse than being named after a really bad fart.” Scanlan clapped his hand on Tiberius’ shoulder.

Tiberius shrugged it off and glared at Scanlan with the fury of a thousand suns. Scanlan didn’t appear to notice and/or care. “I’ll have you know that the House of Stormwind has been denominated such for the greater part of two hundred years and therefore–”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, Tibsy.” Grog said, waving his hand in Tiberius’ general direction. “We want to hear his _name_.” He grinned at Percy. Percy whimpered slightly at Grog’s terrifying smile. Someday, Vax would have to teach Grog to smile in a manner that didn’t make it look like he was about to rip your face off your skull.

“Really? Fine.” Percy took a deep breath. “Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the Third.” He said it so fast that Vax wasn’t actually sure whether it was actually the same name as last time.

Keyleth’s eyes were wide with shock. “Jesus Christ.” She muttered.

“Gesundheit.” Scanlan said, grinning.

Vax kicked him under the table. “I already made that joke.”

“Bite me, Vax.” Scanlan said, leaning forward with a suggestive smirk.

Not one to be out-innuendoed, Vax leaned forward too, so that their foreheads were practically touching. “With pleasure, Shorthalt.” He muttered.

“Is there anything you two won’t make into an innuendo?” Percy asked. He appeared to be genuinely curious.

Scanlan and Vax looked at each other for a moment. Then they simultaneously turned towards Percy and grinned. “Nope!” They said.

“Oh, Scanlan, look!” Pike said, pointing over at the other side of the room. “They’re opening the servery!” She was using her best distraction voice, which, because she was Pike and inherently good at heart, sounded totally fake and nothing like her actual voice. Luckily, the two people she used it on most were either a) too madly in love with her or b) too stupid to notice it.

Scanlan looked over at the servery area. Sure enough, the catering staff were beginning to bring out trays of food to go on the hot plates, including a truly gargantuan pile of curly fries. Scanlan leapt out of his chair and ran across the dining hall, with Grog, Keyleth and Tiberius not too behind him.

Vax looked over at Vex. “Shall we?”

She looked at Percy and then at Pike, who were both still sat at the table, and nodded. It was quite clear to both of them that Pike and Percy had things to talk about.

“See you in a bit, Percival.” She said, getting up from her chair.

Vax joined his sister and they made their way over to the servery. Whilst he was waiting for one of the staff to bring out the burger buns, –what kind of moron brought the buns out last?– Vax looked back at their table. Pike had moved to sit across from Percy and she was nodding thoughtfully as she listened. Percy himself had his arms crossed and was staring down at the table as he spoke.

“Stop it.” Vax said. He didn’t even have to look at Vex to know she was reading their lips.

“I’m not doing anything, Vax.” She said, in a sing-song voice.

He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. She was staring intently at Percy and Pike.  

“Yes, you are. Stop it.” He said.

She didn’t stop staring. “I just want to make sure he’s okay!” She said.

“You just want the latest hot gossip.” Vax knew his sister better than she would have liked, and he knew that aside from being caring and protective, Vex was also incredibly nosy and seemed to view personal boundaries as challenges.

“Fine.” She said, frowning. “Then I won’t tell you what they’re saying.”

Vax sighed. “Good. Because I don’t want to know.”

Vex looked at him, obviously confused. “ _Really_?”

“Yes.” Vax said, pushing a tray into Vex’s hands.

She grabbed a plate and rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re no fun.” She muttered.

Eventually, Pike and Percy joined them, and they all made their way through the servery, piling their plates with as many curly fries as the catering staff would allow. Unsurprisingly, Vex and Scanlan came away with a significantly larger portion than the rest of them. Being a charismatic little shit had its benefits, apparently.

Mealtimes were serious business, and as such, there was barely any conversation as they all wolfed down their dinner. Of course, none of them could quite match up to Grog’s appetite. He ate so quickly that he might as well have opened his mouth and just poured his food down his throat, and as usual, he wasn’t satisfied with just _one_ dinner.

As Grog came back from the servery with his third full plate, he suddenly stopped and looked at Percy in alarm.

Percy noticed Grog staring at him. “Is something wrong, Grog?” He asked.

Grog looked at Percy’s plate. He’d only just finished eating and there was still half of his food left on the plate. “You do _like_ food, don’t you?” Grog whispered, apparently terrified of what Percy’s answer might be.

“Yes.” Percy said.

“Good.” Grog grinned wildly and began to eat his third burger. “I can’t be friends with people who don’t appreciate good food.” Grog said, with a mouth full of curly fries. Apparently, the irony of talking about ‘appreciating good food’ whilst shoving a handful of factory-processed cook-from-frozen chips into his mouth was completely lost on him.

“Well, I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.” Percy said.

“Are you going to finish those fries?” Grog asked, staring at Percy’s plate.

“No.” Percy said. Grog gasped. He looked at Pike in excitement and grabbed Percy’s plate off his tray.

“So,” Vex said, ignoring Grog as he stuff chips into his face. “How was the library?”

“Good.” Pike said. “Grog came up with a really good idea for ‘something blue’.”

“You did?” Vax said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.

Grog grinned. “I’m gonna go on a date with a cheerleader.” He said, eating the last of Percy’s fries. He leaned back in his chair, quite satisfied with himself.

Vax looked at Pike for a proper explanation. “Because she has Westruun’s school flag.” She said.

Scanlan grinned. “And we’re gonna nick–”

“ _Borrow_.” Pike corrected.

“–it. ‘Cause we’re _awesome_.” Scanlan said, completely ignoring Pike.

“So have you actually texted this cheerleader yet?” Vex asked, entirely unable to hide her excitement. Vex had many hobbies and favourite activities, but few came close to getting over invested in other people’s romantic entanglements.

Grog frowned. “Well, no.”

“Are you going to?” Vex asked.

“Uhh…”

“Do you want _me_ to?” Vex suggested.

“No!” Grog said indignantly. Vex raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes.” He mumbled.

Vex put her hand out and Grog dropped his phone into it.

It didn’t surprise Vax that Vex knew Grog’s passcode –trying to hide secrets from her was a futile endeavour–, but he was surprised that Vex apparently knew the cheerleader Grog was talking about because she pulled up their conversation without even having to ask Grog her name.

“Ooo. Look at that.” She said, as she scrolled through the conversation.

“ _Vex_.” Vax said, aware that Vex was doing her usual and hogging everyone’s attention.

“ _Brother_.” She said. Her nails click-clacked as she typed something on Grog’s phone.

She tossed the phone back to Grog. Grog put his hand up to catch it and watched it sail past him and hit the floor with an ominous thunk. Vax silently thanked God for extra strong phone cases.

Grog grabbed the phone off the floor and looked at it. He gasped. “We’re going to Five Guys?!” He said excitedly.

Vex smiled at him. “What can I say? I know you so well.” Although Vex did know Grog rather well, it didn’t take much awareness to know that if you wanted to convince Grog to do something, it was in your best interest to incorporate chips as much as possible.

“You’re the best, Vex!” Grog said, beginning to pile up all of his plates onto one tray.

“I know.” Vex said, obviously very pleased with herself.

Percy pointed past them all to the other side of the room. “Hey, isn’t that the teacher who hates us and wants us all in detention for the rest of our lives?” He said.

Vax looked where he was pointing. Sure enough, the teacher from Percy’s detention was striding over towards them, just as angry as the last time they’d seen her. “Yes. Yes it is.” He said.

“Time to go?” Vex said, looking at Vax.

Vax stood up and grabbed his blazer off the back of his chair. “You took the words out of my mouth, sister.” He said.

“You’re not just going to leave your trays here, are you?” Percy said, looking mildly distraught. Vax smirked. Bless his rule-abiding cotton socks.

Vex giggled and grabbed her tray off the table. “We’re not _monsters_ , Percival.”

“PERCIVAL.” The teacher’s voice was hoarse, like she’d been screaming non-stop since they’d last seen her.

“Guys.” Pike looked at them all, the stress showing on her face.

“Come on!” Vax grabbed his tray and ran towards the drop-off, hoping the rest of them would keep up.

Having hastily shoved his tray in an available gap, he turned and headed for the exit. He could hear the teacher’s heels as she stalked across the hall towards them. Not daring to look behind him, Vax ran straight at the door, pushing it open with his shoulder. The door wasn’t quite as heavy as he’d been expecting and, as such, Vax barrelled through it much too fast and ended up face first on the concrete slab outside.

“Bloody hell, Vax.” Vex said. She grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him upright. “Call yourself a gymnast.” She said, running slightly ahead of him, her hand in Percy’s. Percy was much more nimble that Vax was expecting, and the look of determination on his face seemed out of place given everything else Vax knew about him. Percy was apparently much less awkward than Vax had originally thought.

As Vax caught up, he chanced a look behind them. At some point, Grog had stopped to pick Pike up as she was currently on Grog’s back, her arms wrapped around his neck. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Tiberius and Scanlan seemed to be racing each other, and Keyleth was running just in front of them with a slightly wild grin. Vax smiled. The wind was blowing through her hair and as she leapt onto the path there was a moment where the light caught her just right and she looked like… well, like an angel.

A slap to the back of Vax’s head brought him back down to earth. “Run now. Romance later.” Vex said.

“You can talk.” Vax muttered, looking from Vex’s unamused expression to hers and Percy’s intertwined hands and back up at her again.

She slapped him again and took off running. Vax followed her past the maths block where they had originally kidnapped Percy, towards the boarding houses. A familiar Rolls Royce was parked in one of the nearby carparks.

“Catch you all tomorrow!” Vax yelled over his shoulder, changing course to head for the Rolls. He watched Vex kiss Percy on the cheek and drag him towards his boarding house.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Scanlan yelled, when he realised that Vax was about to make his escape.

“Tough shit, Shorthalt!” Vax laughed. He waved at his valet, Gregory, who was sat in the car waiting for them. No doubt Sir Gregory would feel it his duty to report the manner in which Vax and his sister arrived home to Syldor. Vax wasn’t concerned. What the fuck was his father going to do from the other side of the Atlantic? Ground them in their giant mansion with a cinema and a swimming pool and a bowling alley in the basement?

Vax opened the door to the back of the car and slid all the way across the seats. “Evenin’ Gregory!” He said.

Sir Gregory smiled at him. It wasn’t what Vax would describe as a warm smile, but it wasn’t cold either. Gregory had always been the master of neutrality, so the fact that it extended to his ability to smile wasn’t a surprise to Vax. “Good evening, Master Vessar.” He said, his tone equally neutral.

“Thanks for the ride.” Vax said. He looked out the window. Tiberius, Scanlan, and Keyleth had disappeared inside their boarding houses, Vex, Pike and Grog were all heading towards him, and the teacher was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s my job, sir.” Gregory said.

“Yes, well,” Vax stopped to catch his breath. Although Vax was quick, incredibly so, his fitness and stamina left much to be desired.  “It’s much appreciated. Great timing too.” He noted.

Gregory’s smile barely wavered. “I make a great Deus Ex Machina if I do say so myself.” For a moment, Vax caught what could have been a hint of a grin on Gregory’s face. It was an expression he’d seen hundreds of times in the two and a half years he’d known him and it frustrated Vax immensely. He knew Gregory was _capable_ of being funny, he had to be, but he had an almost supernaturally good poker face and as such, Vax was never quite sure whether he was imagining Gregory’s smirks or not.

“Pardon?” Vax said, realising he hadn’t understood a word of what Gregory had said.

Before Vax had a chance to ask Gregory about it, the front passenger door swung open and Grog flopped in the seat, slamming the door shut behind him.

Grog grinned at Gregory. “Greg!” He said, clapping a hand on his back..

Gregory barely flinched, despite the fact that Grog’s ‘friendly hellos’ had been known to knock the wind out of people. He nodded in Grog’s direction as he started the car. “Master Strongjaw.”

Grog rolled his eyes. “No, see you’re supposed to say ‘Grog!’ ‘cause then it’s funny. Like ‘Greg!’ ‘Grog!’. See?” Grog said, still apparently determined to get Gregory to call him by his first name. Vax laughed. Gregory’s principles were not something to be trifled with. Above all else, he valued rules and administration, which although it made him a somewhat boring housemate, made him an _excellent_ valet.

The door across from Vax opened and Pike climbed inside the car. “Good evening, Mr Fince.” She said, smiling at Gregory through the rear view mirror.

“That it is, Miss Trickfoot.” It was no secret that of all of the SHITs, probably Vex and Vax included to be quite honest, Pike was Gregory’s favourite. They shared a love of rules and order that the rest of them found really odd, and Pike was always trying to help Gregory out around the house, despite his never-ending protests. “I trust your grandfather is eagerly awaiting your arrival.” Gregory said.

“Yes!” Pike smiled at the mere mention of her grandfather, although her expression quickly dropped into a thoughtful look. “Well, that’s if he hasn’t already gone to the pub.” She said, scrunching her nose.

“It’s board game night tonight.” Grog added. Although Vax had only met Wilhand once, when they’d all gone to find Grog when he went missing over half-term and ended up meeting Pike for the first time, he was well aware of Wilhand’s love of puzzles and games. There was an entire bookcase dedicated to board games in the Trickfoots’ living room and Wilhand kept a book of nonograms and sudokus under the counter in his furniture shop, in case he needed to pass the time.

“Gramps thinks he’s finally worked out a strategy to beat Mrs Walters at Six Nimmt.” Pike’s smile returned. “So that should be exciting.” Pike said it with such sincerity that Vax almost forgot that she was talking about a card game being played by two pensioners in a quiet village pub on a Wednesday evening.

“I look forward to hearing the outcome, Miss Trickfoot.” Gregory said, with equal sincerity.

The rear door swung open a final time and Vex leapt in, squashing Pike and Vax in the process. “Pedal to the metal, Gregory! Let’s go!” She said, grinning.

Vax looked out the rear window. Sure enough, he could see the teacher hobbling towards them, brandishing her broken heel like an actual stiletto. She was screaming her face off but the car had excellent noise cancelling capabilities, and as such, Vax couldn’t hear a thing. He pulled his phone out to take a picture of her before the car pulled away.

“I hope you’re not asking me to break The Highway Code, Miss Vessar.” Gregory said as he drove out of the carpark, at what was no doubt exactly the speed limit for the road.

Vex rolled her eyes and flopped back into the seat. “Just slow down for the speed cameras.” She said.

“I won’t have to slow down because I don’t intend to break the law, Miss Vessar.” Gregory’s voice was neutral as ever but Vax was pretty sure he was just trying to wind her up.

Vex frowned. “You’re no fun.” She muttered.

“I never claimed to be.” Gregory said, carefully pulling out onto the main road.

The car ride passed without incident: Gregory dropped Pike and Grog off at their flat in the high street, assuring them he’d be back at quarter to eight the next morning in case they needed a lift, and then drove the twins back to their house on the outskirts of the village.

Gregory slowed the car to a gentle stop outside the mansion Vex and Vax called home. He looked at them in the rear view mirror.  “I have a few errands to run in town. I trust you’ll both be alright for the next hour or so?”

“We’ll see you later, Gregory.” Vax said, opening the car door.

“One would hope so, Master Vessar.” Gregory said. If he hadn’t been, well, _Gregory_ , Vax would have thought he was making a joke. Either that or he’d been binge-watching _The Walking Dead_ whilst the twins were at school.

Vax jumped out of the car and headed towards the front door. From inside, he could hear Trinket barking and running around in circles excitedly, like he always did when he heard the car pull up.

Vex caught up to him as he unlocked the front door and they stepped inside together. Vex said hello to Trinket, an endeavour that took her at minimum five or ten minutes, and Vax poured himself a glass of water.

He looked over at Vex, who had finally stopped giving Trinket more kisses than that poor dog would ever need in his whole life, let alone one afternoon, and had made her way into the kitchen. She was smirking at him.

“What?” He asked, making sure his hair wasn’t doing something ridiculous.

“Nothing.” She said, still smirking.

“ _What_?”

“ _Nothing_.” Vex sat down at the table. Trinket followed her so he could rest his head in her lap.  “We kidnapped a student, Vax.” She said.

Vax grinned. “Yes we did.”

“From _detention_.” A familiar look of pride crept across her face.

“Uh-huh.”

“For a _scavenger hunt_.” Apparently the ridiculousness of it all was only just beginning to dawn on her.

“Yep.”

“Vax?” Vex looked at him.

“Yes?”

“Do you think we’re a bit mental?” She asked.

Vax laughed. “Who, us? Nah. We’re full blown unhinged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback is much appreciated! xx


	6. Keyleth

Keyleth looked at the clock. The school day had been officially over for two and a half minutes but here she was, still staring at cell structure diagrams. She looked at Vax, who was sat beside her. His long black hair was a mess that Keyleth was itching to fix and his biology book was more doodles than actual notes. Vex’s book was no different, with little hearts in the margins and a list of mostly crossed out names that appeared to be Vex trying to work out what Percy’s full name was. At least her hair looked like it had seen a hairbrush in the past month.

The teacher flicked the PowerPoint onto the last slide, signalling the end of the class. Keyleth took a moment to quickly take down the homework on the slide in her diary. Her homework diary was a highly-coordinated system, and had Keyleth’s entire academic and extracurricular life inside it. Keyleth had never claimed to have a particularly good memory, but she’d learned that if you wrote absolutely everything down, then you always had something to refer to when you needed it. Vax looked at Keyleth’s colour-coordinated homework diary and let out a laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me.” She said. She frowned at him, which only made him laugh more.

“Why not?” He said, smirking at her. God, he was infuriating.

She sighed and began to carefully pack away her things. “Because I’m the idiot who’s going to tell you what the homework was when you’ve forgotten it because you didn’t write it down.”

Vax rested his head on her shoulder and looked up at her. “Thank you.” He said.

Keyleth shrugged him off. “Next time I’m going to give you the wrong work on purpose.” She said with as much spite as she could muster.

“Ooo.” Vax said, still grinning. “I’m terrified.”

Vex swept past her brother and offered Keyleth a hand as she got off her stool. “Just ignore him. He’s in an odd mood today.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Swim boy hasn’t texted him in two days.” She said, with a cheeky grin.

“Oh.” Keyleth nodded. Vex had been keeping Keyleth updated on the Saga of the Swim Boy, not because Keyleth was jealous or anything, she was just… invested.

Vex and Keyleth looked at Vax, who was still slowly putting his stuff away. “Come on, Vax.” Vex said.

When he didn’t speed up, she grabbed his phone off the desk and held it up as high as she could. Despite them being practically identical in nearly every other sense, Vex was currently benefitting from the tendencies of girls to grow faster than boys and was a good inch and a half taller than Vax, meaning that Vax’s attempts to grab it back were pointless. The fact that Keyleth was at least three inches taller than either of them was beside the point.

“Hey!” Vax said. Vex smirked and handed the phone to Keyleth. “That’s not fair!” He said, pouting at them.

“Life’s not fair, brother.” Vex said, heading towards the door. Keyleth followed, putting Vax’s phone in her blazer pocket.

If there was one way to get Vax to do anything, it was through his phone. Despite his many many protests to the contrary, Vax was a total social butterfly and the possibility of missing a text from a particular member of the EHS under 16 swimming team was so utterly disastrous that Vax caught up with them outside the science block no more than thirty seconds later.

“Are you guys off to yoga this evening?” Vax asked as he pulled his phone out of Keyleth’s pocket. He was disturbingly good at it and Keyleth wouldn’t have noticed him do it at all if she hadn’t been waiting for it. Also, as soon as he got it back, he immediately checked it for messages, rather ruining any potential for secrecy.

“See, this is why you need a diary, Vax.” Keyleth said, with just the slightest hint of moral superiority in her voice. “Grog’s got his date this evening.”

“I knew that.” He said, putting his phone in his pocket. Vax’s ability to remember things would probably improve if he didn’t spend all his energy trying to aggressively not care about things.

“Sure you did, brother.” Vex said. “So we’re all getting changed and then meeting by the entrance and then we’re off to Five Guys.” She explained, fully aware that Vax was effectively hearing this information for the first time even though they’d spent all of Thursday evening discussing it.

The path in front of them split in two, with the day houses to the left and the boarding houses to the right.

“I’ll see you guys in a bit.” Keyleth said.

“You can leave your bag with us if you want.” Vex said, with a smile that was a little too genuine.

Keyleth smiled back. “No, that’s okay.” She said. It wasn’t that she didn’t _trust_ the twins, it was just that they were the two nosiest people she’d ever met and she absolutely did not trust them at all.

Keyleth ran back to her boarding house, signed her name in the sign-out book and threw on the warmest clothes she could find in her wardrobe. It might have only been November but Keyleth pretty much felt permanently cold from when the leaves started turning in September all the way through to the two weeks of British Springtime, usually in late April or early May.

When she made it back to the entrance, she found Vex, Vax, Pike, Grog and Scanlan waiting on the wall, all out of school uniform and ready to go. Apparently, it had taken her longer than she thought to pick an outfit.

“We all ready?” Vex asked.

Everyone made vague noises in agreement and they set off.

“You excited, Grog?” Keyleth asked, falling into step next to Grog and Pike.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I haven’t been to Five Guys in aaaages.”

Keyleth laughed. “Grog, we went two weeks ago for Tiberius’ birthday.”

Grog frowned. “ _Exactly_.”

The walk wasn’t particularly long and soon enough they were on the main high street. They still had twenty minutes to kill before Grog’s cheerleader showed up. Keyleth looked at the florist’s down the road and had an idea.

“Come on, Grog.” She said, grabbing his arm and walking off towards the shop. Unfortunately, Grog was too busy talking to Scanlan to hear Keyleth and so despite the fact that Keyleth was using all her body weight and strength –not that she had much of either– to pull him along, Grog didn’t move or even notice someone was trying to get his attention.

“Grog!” She said, slightly louder this time.

He turned around, swinging Keyleth, who was still holding onto his arm, around in the process. “Yes, Keyleth?”

“Let’s go get cheerleader girl a present.” She said, pointing at the florist’s.

Grog still didn’t move. “Is it her birthday?”

“No.” Keyleth ignored Scanlan’s snickering. “Look it’s just a thing people do on dates, come on.” Keyleth felt a bit ridiculous decreeing what ‘people’ did or didn’t do on dates, given the fact that she was the only member of the SHITs who’d never actually been on a date, or even asked on one. Social anxiety was, apparently, a real mood killer.

Luckily that was all the explanation Grog needed and he strode off down the high street.

“Back in a jiff, guys.” Keyleth said, following him.

They walked down the high street, and headed inside the tiny florist’s shop. The inside of the shop was, as usual, positively overflowing with flowers, they were lined up across tables and hanging from the ceiling and in pots on the floor. Keyleth smiled.

As they opened the door, the florist came out to greet them. His face lit up when he realised his favourite customer was back again and he quickly whisked them back to the workbench where he put bouquets together. Keyleth explained what she wanted: yellow roses as the centrepiece with a bit of purple and white somethings to break up all the yellow, all wrapped in a cutesy little gift bag so cheerleader girl could pop it under her chair whilst they ate.

The florist listened and pulled the whole thing together with determined efficiency. He wrapped a ribbon around the bag and pushed it towards her, absolutely refusing to accept any payment due to her ‘brightening up an otherwise exceedingly dull day’.

“What are the flowers for?” He asked as he walked them back to the front of the store.

Keyleth smiled. “Grog’s got a date.”

The florist couldn’t hide his surprise. “And you’re giving her _yellow roses_?” He said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ll see you around?”

“Of course!” She smiled and left the shop.

Grog frowned. “What was that about yellow roses? They’re not going to kill her, are they?” He looked down at the bag he was holding, mildly impressed.

Keyleth chuckled. Trust Grog’s thoughts to leap straight to murder. “Different flowers have different meanings. Yellow roses symbolise friendship.”

Grog smiled broadly. “You’re the best, Keyleth.”

“No problem, Grog.” She said as he hugged her, almost picking her up off the pavement.

By the time they got back to Five Guys, their friends had disappeared inside. Keyleth noticed a girl in Westruun’s uniform waiting outside the door. How could anyone look that nice in what was such a hideous school uniform?

When the girl noticed Grog, she smiled widely, showing off her perfect teeth.

“Grog!” She exclaimed. Keyleth nudged Grog forward and disappeared behind a group of rowdy Year 7s she half-recognised from Emon Prep.

“Nahla!” Grog said, imitating the cheerleader’s voice in a way that sounded only slightly ridiculous.

Keyleth smirked.

“I, uh,” Grog looked down at the flowers in his hand. “I got you flowers!” He said, holding the bag out between them, efficiently maintaining the distance between them.

“They’re gorgeous, Grog.” She took them out of his hand and gestured to the door. “Shall we?”

Grog and Nahla went inside and Keyleth followed them. She spotted everyone else sitting at a large group table at the back and snuck around the side to go sit with them.

“Sorry for abandoning you, Keyleth.” Pike said as Keyleth took the empty seat at the table. “Scanlan was hungry.”

Keyleth rolled her eyes at Scanlan. “Of course he was.” Scanlan shrugged. He seemed to be of the opinion his obsession with food was somehow not his fault, which quite clearly made no sense.

“You not eating, Keyleth?” Pike asked.

Keyleth looked at the giant pile of fries in front of Vex and Vax. “I think I’ll be okay.” She said, pinching one off the top.

Luckily for Keyleth, both of the twins were thoroughly distracted. Vex was watching Grog’s date intensely, reading their lips because she was a nosy parker, and Vax and Scanlan were busy making minute-by-minute bets with Scanlan’s spicy fries about what Grog was going to do next, using Vex’s intel.

“ _Boys_.” Keyleth sighed.

They both looked at her.

“Yes dear?” Scanlan said, successfully sounding sincere for no more than five seconds, before he burst into giggles.

“You keep doing that,” she pointed at the spicy fries, “and I will go over and tell Grog what you’re doing.”

Scanlan leaned back in his seat, like he wasn’t even fussed. “So?”

“ _So_ he’s really nervous and if he thinks you’re making fun of him, he will punch you in the face.” Pike said, with a smirk.

Scanlan shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Keyleth didn’t like silence. She always felt like they were all staring at her, even when she knew they weren’t, but when someone was talking everyone focused on them and Keyleth could convince herself that no one was looking at her.

“So where are Percy and Tibs?” She asked, attempting to fill the silence.

“They went home for exeat weekend.” Vex said, her eyes still glued to Grog’s conversation with Nahla.

Although the usual expectation was that all boarders went home for the duration of exeat weekend, Keyleth hadn’t exactly been particularly enthusiastic about going home. It wasn’t that there was anything _wrong_ with home per say, just that a four-hour train journey each way didn’t really seem worth it for two days. That and the fact that Keyleth would much rather stay in Vex and Vax’s literal mansion than the odd little eco village/commune that Keyleth called home.

“Aren’t you going back to visit your mum, Scanlan?” Keyleth asked. She didn’t know very much about Scanlan’s mum –or really anything to do with Scanlan’s home life now that she thought about it– but she did know that she was some crazy rich business lady at some pharmaceutical company and they lived in what Keyleth had determined from some intense Facebook stalking was an _incredibly_ swanky apartment.

“She’s away on a business retreat.” Scanlan said. His reply was slightly too quick, even for Scanlan, who seemed to be on a permanent sugar high. Keyleth dismissed it as a result of the now almost empty glass of cherry vanilla cola in front of him.

“He twisted Gramps’ arm and convinced him to let him stay with us.” Pike explained.

“I don’t imagine it took much arm-twisting.” Keyleth said. They’d known Pike and her grandfather less than a month but she already had the impression that Wilhand would probably let them all move with him at a moment’s notice if they wanted.

Scanlan scoffed. “I basically just mentioned that I was looking forward to having a weekend to myself to write songs and before I finished my sentence he’d already offered me Grog’s bed for the weekend.” Scanlan said it like this was a testament to his apparently _infinite_ charisma, as opposed to Wilhand’s good nature.

“You’re sleeping in Grog’s bed?” Keyleth asked.

Scanlan laughed. “Are you crazy? You think I’d take Grog’s bed from him? He’d strangle me in my sleep! I graciously offered to take the couch.”

Pike shoved him in the arm before he got too big for his boots. “The couch that turns into a double bed.” She noted.

Scanlan waved his hand at her dismissively. “You’re ruining the story.” He said.

Vex gasped. Although from the looks of things, she was still staring at Grog and apparently not listening to Keyleth and Scanlan’s conversation at all.

“What?” Vax said, looking at his sister.

“Did you find out where the flag is?” Scanlan asked.

Vex grinned. “Grog just told Nahla he always thought that the cheerleaders worked just as hard if not harder than the sports teams and that he’d ‘love to go to the gym with her sometime’. You know I’m surprised she hasn’t married him yet.” She watched them in silence for a moment. “And now she’s telling him about the time she bench-pressed one of her cheerleader friends on a dare.” Keyleth was happy that even though Grog was probably deeply uncomfortable, at least he and Nahla had something - being able to bench-press their friends, to be exact- in common.

Scanlan grinned. “Ten quid says he challenges her to an arm wrestle.”

“Twenty that _she_ challenges _him_.” Vax said, grinning back.

“Boys!” Keyleth shook her head. “We are not here to make bets!”

“Are we not?” Scanlan said, in mock surprise.

“No!” Keyleth said, leaning over to shove him.

“You’re missing the gun show, boys.” Vex said, with a smirk.

Both Scanlan and Vax immediately whipped their heads around to look at Nahla and Grog. Keyleth was slightly slower to divert her attention, but sure enough Grog and Nahla were both sat in the middle of the restaurant showing off their arm muscles. It was quite something.

“If Grog won’t marry her, I will.” Scanlan said, sighing slightly.

“Somehow I don’t think she’d be interested in a shortarse who probably couldn’t do a press-up if you paid him to.” Vax said, with a grin.

Scanlan frowned at him. “ _Rude_.”

Vax nudged his sister in the arm. “Notice he didn’t actually claim it wasn’t _true_.”

Scanlan sighed dramatically. Although having said that, there were very few things Scanlan _didn't_ do dramatically. “That’s because it was so _obvious_ how false it was that I didn’t think it needed–”

Vex, without moving her eyes, covered Scanlan’s mouth with her hand. A second later she recoiled in disgust. Keyleth only caught a glance of Vex’s palm but it seemed to be wet. Like someone had licked it. Gross.

“Scanlan, you’re disgusting!” Vex shrieked, wiping her hand all over Scanlan’s jacket.

“You know I am.” Scanlan said, with a wink. Keyleth was surprised Scanlan wasn’t more concerned about the state of his jacket.

Vex shoved him in the shoulder, which almost sent him flying off his seat. “Okay, firstly, that was _not_ a compliment, you fuckwad, and secondly, I know where the flag is.” She said, with an air of superiority about her. Vex and Scanlan had been at each other's throats virtually since they’d met. Keyleth had sort of been hoping that their initial animosity would have died down by now but here they were, a month later, and still just as argumentative. At least their arguments were mostly amusing.

“You do?” Keyleth said.

Vex was obviously much happier now that she had all information –and therefore all the power– again. “It’s in her locker in the sports block.” She said.

Scanlan shrugged. “Oh, well that’s not too bad.”

Vex looked at her brother in disbelief. He shrugged. She looked at Scanlan. “The _Westruun_ sports block, Scanlan.”

Scanlan paused for a moment. “I knew that.”

“Jesus Christ.” Vax said, with his head in his hands. He took a moment before sitting up with his game face on. “Okay so Vex and I can go retrieve the flag from her locker, you guys stay here and make sure Grog doesn’t break anything.”

“I should probably stay here and uh… monitor their conversation.” Vex said.

Vax rolled his eyes. “Okay so Vex can stay here and fulfil her insatiable appetite for gossip.” He paused as Vex hit him in the shoulder. Apparently, he’d been expecting it. “And me and _Keyleth_ can go get the flag.”

Keyleth looked at Vax in alarm. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Vax.” She said, recalling the three times she’d walked into her bed that morning alone. “Maybe I should just stay here.”

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Keyleth found herself standing outside Westruun Prep, looking at the sports hall. Like EHS, the sports hall was more of a sports _complex_ and was state of the art. It was the sort of thing that just happened when your school attracted the children of diplomats and CEOs and aristocrats.

Vax looked over at her. “This would probably be easier if you’d dressed more appropriately.” He said, looking at Keyleth’s bright green winter coat and then at his own entirely black ensemble.

“I was _cold_ and this coat is cute. And anyway, don’t pretend like you _planned_ for this, you always dress like that.” Keyleth said. She’d met him a month ago, and seen him most days since then and had yet to see him wearing any more colour than a warm grey.

Vax tossed his hair over his shoulder dramatically. “You’re just jealous of the time I save each morning not bothering with colour matching.” He said.

Keyleth looked at his outfit. Vax probably _thought_ all his clothes were the same colour but they really weren't. “Yeah, I can tell.”

“You don't need to colour match when your entire outfit is the same colour.” He said, gesturing to his outfit.

Keyleth raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re literally wearing five different shades of black right now.”

Vax scoffed. “Black doesn’t have different _shades_.”

“How are we friends?” Keyleth asked, looking at Vax.

Vax grinned. “I honestly don’t know.”

Keyleth looked at the building in front of her. All the doors had passcode locks on them, just like the doors at EHS, and Keyleth had no idea how they were going to get through them. Luckily, Vax was rather good at skirting the rules. “Right, so what’s the plan?” She asked him.

Vax thought for a moment, and then pointed at the nearest door. “We wait until someone uses the door and then we sneak in after them.”

“Oh.”

Vax looked at Keyleth, frowning a little. “What?”

Keyleth shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought it would be cooler.”

Vax sighed and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “There's nothing _cool_ about crime, Keyleth.”

Keyleth rolled her eyes. How was she friends with such a melodramatic idiot? “You're literally about to break into a school to steal their property.” She said.

“And?” Vax looked at her, as innocently as possible.

Keyleth shoved him in the arm. “You're the worst.”

“You love it.” Vax said, watching the door. A weedy looking Westruun boy with dark brown hair approached the door.

Vax grinned. “He’s cute.” He whispered.

Keyleth slapped his arm and gave him a look. “Can’t you switch that off for like two seconds?”

“Switch what off?” He said with a smirk.

Keyleth raised an eyebrow at him.

His smile grew and he dragged Keyleth towards the door. “Come on.”

Just before it closed, Vax stuck his foot in the door. He waited for a moment as the sound of the boy walking inside got progressively quieter until they could barely hear him.

Vax pulled the door open and gestured inside. “After you.”

“And they say chivalry is dead.” Keyleth said, stepping inside the building and into a long corridor. The walls were lined with lockers and signs hung from the ceiling pointed to the swimming pool, the gymnasium, the golf academy, and the fitness and wellbeing centre. It was nice to see Emon wasn’t the only horrendously pretentious educational institution around.

“How do we know which locker is hers?” Keyleth asked. There must have been literally hundreds of them and, unlike Emon, they didn’t have students’ names on them, only numbers.

Vax didn’t reply.

“You hadn’t thought about that, had you?”

Still no reply.

“For God’s sake, Vax.”

She looked at him. He was frowning in thought and doing an incredibly good job of avoiding Keyleth’s gaze.

“Well, what are we going to do? We can’t exactly open all the lockers. It would take hours.” Keyleth said, pointing at the rows and rows and rows of lockers.

Vax bit his lip and continued to think. Eventually, he spoke. “I’ll ring Vex and get her to lift Nahla’s keys and hope her locker key is numbered.” He said.

“Surely we should have done that earlier?” Keyleth said. Breaking into things tended to be easier when you had the keys.

“But then how would I impress you with my expert lock-picking skills?” Vax smirked and tossed her his phone. “Talk to Vex for me, I’m going to do a test run on one of these lockers.”

Vax pulled out his lock picking set and headed towards a random locker. Keyleth looked down at the phone in her hands. The background was a picture of two kids with long thick black hair, wearing bright red ‘Thing 1’ and ‘Thing 2’ hoodies and grinning widely, presumably Vex and Vax when they were much younger. In between them smiling just as widely was a lady with mousy brown hair that Keyleth didn’t recognise. Although, the similarities between all three of their smiles gave Keyleth quite a good idea as to who it might be.

Scrolling through his contacts, Keyleth realised that Vax appeared to prefer pseudonyms to actual names and thus finding Vex’s contact proved rather frustrating. Eventually she found a contact named ‘evil clone’ and decided that was her best bet. Keyleth wasn’t a fan of making phone calls, much less phone calls to potentially an entirely wrong number, but she didn’t want to be the one to let the side down now that they were so close to victory, so she sucked it up and called the number.

“Please tell me you didn’t get arrested.” The voice on the other end was sarcastic and entirely unamused.

Keyleth let out the breath she’d been holding. “Oh, thank God it's you.”

“Keyleth?” Vex paused for a second. “Is Vax alright?” She said, doing a terrible job of hiding the concern in her voice.

“What? Yes, he’s fine. He’s just busy.” Keyleth said quickly, before Vex leapt through the phone and strangled her for allowing her brother to get hurt. As much as they bickered and fought, Vex and Vax were incredibly protective of each other. God help the moron who decided to be the first one to date either of them.

“So, what do you need? I presume you didn’t ring me just to listen to my gorgeous voice.” Vex said. Even if Keyleth did enjoy listening to Vex’s gorgeous voice, which, for the record, she did _not_ , she wouldn’t ever admit it to Vex in a million years. She wasn’t _completely_ stupid. That girl ate up gossip faster than Grog ate up pizzas.

“Can you get Nahla’s keys for us?” Keyleth asked. “There’s a bazillion lockers here and they’ve only got numbers on them so we don’t know which one is hers.”

“Honestly, do I have to do everything around here?” Vex said, although Keyleth could hear in her voice she wasn’t being serious.

Keyleth could hear Scanlan laugh in the background. “Was that ‘everything’ or ‘everyone’?” He said. A moment later he yelped in pain.

Keyleth chuckled. “That alright, Vex?”

“Anything for you two, love. Give me a minute.”

“She’s just getting the keys now.” Keyleth said to Vax. He was crouched in front of one of the nearby lockers, doing whatever it was people did to pick locks. Vax had offered to teach her once or twice but her hands tended to shake when she was anxious and there were few things Keyleth found more anxiety-inducing than the possibility of getting in trouble, so she’d given it a miss.

Vax nodded at her. There was a resounding ‘clunk’ and the door to the locker swung open. Vax looked up at Keyleth and grinned. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Keyleth tilted her head in confusion. “Why would you shoot the fish if they’re already in a barrel?”

“Uh…” Vax thought for a second. “Ask Vex.”

Keyleth shrugged. She gotten used to not entirely understanding everything her friends said. There probably _were_ perks to growing up in a tiny community comprised entirely of ecologically-minded scientists and their families, but she had yet to find them.

“And so, I said to him–” Keyleth jumped at the voice, before realising she still had Vex on the phone.

“Said what to who?” She asked, worried she’d missed the beginning of Vex’s statement.

“I said you pop that gum one more time!” Vex continued like she hadn’t heard Keyleth. “And he did. So, I– Oh, sorry, love! Here let me get that for you.” It occurred to Keyleth that perhaps Vex’s odd ramblings, which sounded vaguely familiar although Keyleth couldn’t quite place them, were part of her subterfuge in getting a hold of Nahla’s keys.

“No, no.” Vex said, using that voice she had that made you feel like you were about to just melt into the pavement. “It was my fault honestly. I’m such a klutz.” She giggled. Vex was many things but a klutz was not one of them.

There was a moment of silence. “Got the keys, Keyleth.”

“Great.” Keyleth said, giving Vax a thumbs-up.

“Okay, so we’ve got two keys with numbers.” Vex said. Keyleth wondered if they’d ever actually achieve something without at least one thing being unnecessarily difficult.

“Okay so the first key is a 221.” Vex said.

Keyleth repeated the message to Vax, who set off to find the locker. She followed him and they eventually found it, about halfway down the corridor. Vax quickly set about breaking in and after a minute or two, the door swung open. Less than a second later, the entire area was filled with such a horrendous stench that Keyleth was convinced that something must have died inside the locker. However, when she peered inside, all she could see was a mouth guard and two mismatching football boots that were completely caked in mud.

“Nope!” Vax said, slamming the door shut.

“What’s the other number?” Keyleth asked, still feeling like she might throw up at any moment. Why were teenage boys so gross?

“394.” Vex said.

They found the second locker and Vax opened it, this time considerably faster than his previous two attempts. Perhaps he’d needed a warm up.

Thankfully, this locker was much less vomit-inducing than the first one. Inside was a Westruun official PE bag, with a mirror and some kind of schedule pinned to the inside of the door, as well as what appeared to be a box of hair pins on the shelf at the top. However, what was most exciting was the folded-up piece of blue fabric resting on top of the PE bag.

Vax grabbed it and stuffed it inside his leather jacket. He grinned at Keyleth.

She grinned back. “Jackpot!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the entirely unintentional hiatus! Anyhoo, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! All feedback is super duper appreciated and please let me know if there's any British-isms or anything else that confuses you or whatever! (also hi yes it's still me I used to be jerkwithaheartofgold but I swapped it so my username matches Tumblr whoopsie) xxx

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any feedback would be much appreciated! As you can probably tell, this is going to be a long one...


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